"Cat-eyed Boy" pulls out every imaginable stop concerning the odd things that make older manga interesting. The protagonist is never pinned as a hero or villain, narrator or subject. From one story to the next the Cat-eyed Boy in question is helping free villagers from curses, protecting them from homicidal mutants, saving children from abusive families, hiding in attics gleefully narrating as a family is killed by crab monsters or taken one-by-one by a sentient ball of hair, stealing from or cruelly terrorizing townspeople, or saving the town from tsunami summoners only to be chased away and beaten as thanks. The main characters in many classic manga have mysterious motives or no discernable motives at all, none of them are more mystifying than Cat-eyed Boy.
The art has fun proto body horror, kind of campy EC feel with fewer boundaries concerning gore and violence. The character designs are reliably fun and interesting, the "horde of motley monsters" scenes are some of the best parts of the book. (If hordes of miscellaneous monsters appeal to you, which they do, try "Rusty and Big Guy," "Devilman," and almost anything by Yuichi Yokoyama (whose hordes aren't technically monsters but are highly motley.))
As much as I enjoy the comfort of the “rinse and repeat” story arcs of things like "Pokemon" or "Lone Wolf and Cub” the stories in "Cat-eyed Boy" tend to set the table then meander in any random direction. Such a unique series, if this sounds interesting at all read it because no one else does.
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